A lease renewal agreement extends a tenancy on stated terms, and the way it is written decides whether anybody can reconstruct the tenancy two years later. The two common approaches, a whole new lease and a one-line note, are both worse than the middle. This page is the middle: a short document that restates what changed and leaves everything else visibly in force.
Restate what changed, in full
The new term with its start and end dates, the new rent and the date it takes effect, and anything else that has moved. Write the replacement rather than the instruction: the rent is now this figure from this date, not the rent increases by this much. Somebody reading the file later should be able to state the current terms without doing arithmetic across three documents.
Say the rest continues
One sentence confirming that all other terms of the original lease, as previously amended, remain in force, with the original identified by property, parties and date. That sentence is what makes the renewal an addendum to a known document rather than a free-standing note about a rent figure. Name the addenda too if there are any, because otherwise their status is a question.
The dates that must be explicit
The date the renewal is signed, the date the new term starts, and the date the new rent takes effect, which is frequently not the same as the start of the term. Leaving the third to be inferred is how one party pays the old rent for a month while the other expects the new one, and it is a very ordinary mistake with a very irritating conversation attached.
File it with the lease, not near it
The current agreement is the original plus its addenda plus this renewal, and that only works if they live together. A renewal signed and filed in a different place produces a file where the lease on top states last year's rent, which is exactly the sort of thing that gets quoted in a dispute. One tenancy, one place, in order.
Questions people ask about lease renewal agreement
Does a renewal need a whole new lease?
No, and a new lease loses the history. A short renewal agreement that restates the changes and confirms the rest is both easier to write and easier to read later.
When should a renewal be signed?
Before the current term ends, with enough margin that the alternative is still available to both sides. Most landlords start the conversation around ninety days out.
What if the terms are unchanged except the dates?
Then the renewal is two sentences and still worth writing. An unwritten renewal usually means the tenancy converts to periodic under state default rules, which may not be what either side intended.